Veils
by Garrae
Summary: "Hallowe'en. A cold dark night, hiding darker things. A night when witches and warlocks dance and howl under a gibbous moon; a night when the Wild Hunt rides and the Black Dogs prowl; a night when demons hunt and devils feast on the souls of the damned." Castle Hallowe'en Bash 2018.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 _Hallowe'en._

 _A cold dark night, hiding darker things. A night when witches and warlocks dance and howl under a gibbous moon; a night when the Wild Hunt rides and the Black Dogs prowl; a night when demons hunt and devils feast on the souls of the damned. A night when all good people lock their doors tight against evil, and cower around their fires. A night when the dead rise._

"Not any more. And that's all superstitious nonsense anyway. Now Hallowe'en's just another excuse for Hallmark to make a fortune out of gullible people and those with more money than sense. Kids get sick on candy and their parents have another set of dumb costumes."

"Beckett, Beckett. There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Beckett, than are dreamt of in your – very mundane and boring, I might add – philosophy."

"They might have believed in all that in 1600 but this is 2009. There's no evidence for any of it."

"At least come to my Hallowe'en party." Castle's big blue eyes were wide and hopeful.

"I already told you _no_. I've got other things to do."

"But my party will be better than them. Spooky stories, themed decorations, everybody dressed up..."

"No."

"C'mon. It'll be much better than any other invitation."

"So what you're saying is that I should cancel doing something I've already accepted for a better – so you say – offer? I thought your mother taught you better manners than that?"

Castle subsided, and pretended to look hurt. Beckett ignored his faux-pathos, and returned to her work. His words still rang in her head.

 _A night when the dead rise._

That would be every night, then. And every day. She walked surrounded by the dead, slept within their shrouds – and listened to their stories. They came to her for justice, and justice they would receive. Perhaps it was an unfair advantage, but on balance, she'd rather justice was done than not, and her reputation was merely a happy side-effect. The boys often wondered how so many of her hunches and trails turned out to be right, but they liked the commendations for the team as well as anyone.

 _A night when the dead rise._

A night when she had a different party to attend.

There was always a price to be paid.

* * *

Hallowe'en rolled around, and Castle's importunings became more voluble.

"Just bring them along to my party," he tried, the day before, while making coffee. "Everyone's welcome. We've plenty of space and loads of food" –

"I told you, I've got a prior invitation. I'm not disrupting their plans."

"Pop in beforehand. Just for an hour. Open house from half past seven. You don't even have to wear fancy dress if your other party isn't. You get a pass."

That was...earlier than she'd expected. That might be doable. She'd expected that Castle's party would be later on. She chewed her lip, thinking. A quick drive to her destination, straight up Riverside Drive... yep. It worked.

"Okay. But not for long, and you don't try and delay me when I have to leave." She glared. "And no fancy dress."

"I would never!"

"You would so," she said dryly.

"I won't. Promise. It's great that you're coming." He passed her the coffee cup. "Your hands are cold," he said. "You must be standing under the A/C, because it's colder round you than here."

"We have no A/C in October. You're just hot because you've been playing with the milk steamer."

"I'm always hot," he smirked. Beckett glared, and he subsided. "Guess so." He wandered out.

Beckett looked around at the gleaming coffee machine and dingy walls, the scuffed tiles and worn couch, and took a slow sip of her latte. For an instant, a thin grey veil wrapped around her hands, and dissipated. It could have been steam, to an observer, had it been observed at all.

She clacked out into the bullpen. "Ryan, we need a specific search around 32nd and First."

"How – what?"

"I was thinking. It's not the fastest route, but it's quieter than the others."

"Another hunch?"

"Yeah."

"How do you do that?" Castle asked. "You sit and think and stare at that board – and the way you chew your lip and kick your feet is just so cute" –

"I am _not_ cute" –

"and then suddenly you have a trail."

"It's called experience. Putting lots of little clues together to form a pattern."

"I'm good at patterns and I can't do it."

"You're good at crazy theories which make no sense. Detectives are good at logic and facts, not wild suppositions."

"Oooohhhh, say _suppositions_ some more."

"No."

Castle pouted.

A chilly trail slid against Beckett's cheek, and she shivered.

"You're cold."

"No..."

"You're always shivering. And your hands were cold." He came towards her, and sat down on the desk. "You need to take better care of yourself. Warmer sweaters." He grinned. "Not thermal underwear, though. That wouldn't be sexy."

"Since you won't be seeing my underwear, it won't matter."

"Sure it does. Dreams of thermal underwear aren't interesting."

Beckett shivered again, not listening to Castle but listening to the whispers on the air, staring at the board. Maybe that was why she hadn't noticed his hand surreptitiously sneaking round to cover hers.

"Your hands are still freezing," he complained, as she snatched it away.

"I told you, you're just overheated."

"I'd like that so much better if you'd said I'm hot again."

Beckett made a disgusted noise, for form's sake, and went back to staring at the board.

She was still staring at it fifteen minutes later, when Montgomery shooed them all out. One hunch per day was all she could allow herself, but later she'd sneak back and write up another piece of information which hadn't arrived through regular channels. She shook Castle off, ignored his whimpers, which were entirely insincere, and went home.

The dead went with her. At least they were quiet guests, needing no sustenance of any sort. Of course, they spoke to her, but they were well-mannered, and waited till she could listen. They had all the time in the world, and if she were lonely, they were there to keep her company. Her dead had become her life.

Her only grief was that her mother was never there. No matter how she hunted, no matter how many she gave justice: her mother never came. Maybe there were rules, but still, she grieved and railed against it: to no avail.

The soft veils ghosted about her as she searched her wardrobe for appropriate attire for the following evening. One should respect the occasion, and her apparel would reflect that, while still being unremarkable at Castle's party: a full-skirted, mid-length black dress with sweetheart neckline and small puffed sleeves; a tracery of silvery-black embroidery curling around the hem; black heels. She shook them out, and hung them in a clear space, so that there should be no creases. The garb was perfectly apt for her second appointment.

* * *

"You will come, won't you?"

"I said I would, okay? Stop harassing me or I'll change my mind."

Castle's lips clamped shut.

"Shouldn't you be at home anyway, preparing, rather than annoying me?"

"But annoying you is so... much... fun... okay, shutting up now."

He brushed past her, and shivered. "You're cold. How are you so cold?" His mind jumped. "I could warm you up."

"Out. Go carve pumpkins, or something." Her fingers tapped around her Glock. Castle thought, fancifully, that they were paler than usual, but maybe that was simply her crimson nail polish. She didn't usually wear a strong colour... but she was going to two parties tonight, so maybe she'd merely done it early.

"Okay, okay." He pouted at her. "Anyone would think you didn't like me."

"Anyone might."

"I still don't see whose party could possibly be better than mine," he groused. "All your friends are coming."

"You don't know all my friends."

Castle's curiosity roused. Fortunately for his continued life and good health, he didn't say anything more, but wandered home, plotting. Halfway there, it dawned on him that he...um...well...if she wouldn't tell him where she was going, which simply wasn't fair...um...well...he'd talked her into exchanging Find My i-Phone so that she never had to tell him where the crime scene was: he could simply turn up. It saved time. It also let him see if he should go to the precinct or the morgue. He shouldn't do this... but he couldn't stand knowing that someone was throwing a more desirable party than his.

Beckett shouldn't be going to other people's parties. She should come to his party. And then she should stay on for a private party of their own. It would have been a lot easier to convince her if Ryan and Espo hadn't interrupted... Anyway. If he took a quick look he'd know if it was any of his competitors. He knew where all of them lived, thanks to the poker games.

Fixing food; candy for stray children trick-or-treating – and far more candy for his equally sweet-toothed friends and family; ensuring the spooky decorations were suitably gruesome and his costume perfect, took Castle until almost seven thirty. He shrugged into his dull red shirt, tan pants with suspenders, added the boots and belt, and finally the long brown coat.

Not ten minutes later, the door sounded, and people began to arrive.

"You came!"

"I said I would."

"Let me take your coat." Castle slipped it from Beckett's slim shoulders. "You're cold. You need a thicker coat."

"I'm not cold."

He took a better look at her. "You're gorgeous," he blurted out.

"Thank you." Colour sprang to her cheekbones, emphasising the clear pallor of her face and arms. Her father's watch was incongruous: wide across her left wrist. "What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?"

The leer was instant, and expected. "Trick or treat."

"What?"

"Trick or treat?" Castle repeated.

"Isn't that what I should say?"

"Probably, in which case I want a treat." Beckett glared. "Just a little treat." She rolled her eyes with familiar irritation. "Hold my hands."

"What?"

"I want to hold hands. I mean, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to kiss me, but" –

"No."

"I knew you'd say that," he said disappointedly. "No kisses. But hold my hands."

"What are you, three?"

"If it gets you to hold my hand."

Her eyes should have rolled out of her head, but she extended both hands to him.

"They're freezing! Didn't you have gloves?"

She had had gloves, but the dead had coated her all the way.

Castle enveloped her hands in his and rubbed them vigorously, until he was satisfied that they were warm.

"You need better gloves."

She didn't answer. No gloves would warm the touch of her dead. Gloves and coats had no power to warm the dead, cold from their graves. She didn't feel the cold, now; nor did it affect her.

Around nine p.m., a little later than she'd intended, Beckett made her farewell to Castle, who, as he had promised, but to her surprise that he could keep that promise, didn't try to persuade her to stay. He took her hands again before she went, though: his warm around hers.

"If it's boring, come back," he said.

"It won't be. Thanks for a good time. See you tomorrow." She turned to the door.

"Till tomorrow," Castle said. Behind his back, his fingers were crossed.

Beckett parked up on W153rd Street, and, swathed in the same black coat she'd worn to Castle's, went to the entrance she'd sought. The gates were, of course, locked. That didn't worry her. Iron might stop witches, if witches there were (she didn't believe there were), but it had no effect on her, with the dead around her. She walked straight through, and a trail of thick mist followed her. As she walked on, it thickened further, solidifying. She knew where she was going, and what to do. She always had, since the very first time, ten full years ago on Hallowe'en, when the first price was paid.

That time, she had been terrified: startling at shadows and trembling at every noise, convinced that there were ghouls behind her and demons alongside, never there when her head whipped round at some glimmer in the corner of her eye. That time, her dead had led her: here and now, she led them. She knew the way, none better: she didn't need the pale moon to guide her steps. The wind cut through her coat, but it had no power to chill her.

She came to the earliest grave. James De Lancey: at various times, Colonial Governor of New York. He'd died before the United States was ever a country of its own, she thought, but it had to be the oldest grave, even if her dead were new. There had always been plenty of dead, in this land.

She set a small bowl on the grass, and shucked her coat, folding it tidily. The bowl was the same clean white as her skin, and as smooth, no flaw or goosebump to mar either surface. This, too, had terrified her, the first time, when the price had been made plain. She'd thought that she would be joining them.

But no. That price had not been demanded of her, nor, she had been given to understand, would it be. Perhaps, she now thought, that price had been paid by another. It seemed too coincidental: that the dead had come to her hard upon the funeral. Maybe that was enough price for anyone to pay: another's death, her father's fall... and once yearly, when the veil between the living and the dead was gossamer thin and rent to shreds, a further payment.

She knelt by the eldest grave, and bowed her head slightly. Not too much. They might help her, but they needed her as much, and more, as she did them. Respect, but never subservience. She looked at her watch, and removed it, laying it on the coat, revealing the ridges that she hid at every other time. Nine of them. Tonight, there would be a tenth. From a pocket, she brought the bright steel blade.

 _Bone and blood and iron_ , they whispered around her. _Bone and blood and iron, binding the living to the dead: bone for the dead, blood for the living, iron to bring them together._

"Bone and blood and iron," she whispered back, and the mists caught her words and huddled close, resolving into half-seen shapes: a hint of clothes, of hair, a form. In a moment, everything would change.

She sliced across her wrist, fast and sure. The pain was fleeting: the blade was scalpel sharp – and as soon as the cut was open, she felt no more than her dead would do.

Avidly, they absorbed her dripping blood, and came to life, as she, for this time, became the dead: the two worlds merging on that one night, in that one place: fuelled by her lifeblood, the sharp steel, and their bone. As they drank, they solidified, mist became cold flesh, eyes coloured, hair moved with the wind, their voices became more than whispers in the dark – to her. Only to her. Here and now, caught between life and death, they spoke aloud, telling their stories old and new, and she listened and gave them some few drops of life again.

* * *

Back in Broome Street, Castle's party was jumping. Everyone was there, everyone was costumed and drinking and pranking each other. It couldn't have been more of a success.

But Castle himself was skulking in his study, tracing Beckett's movements. Finally, she'd stopped, way up Manhattan, above Hamilton Heights. None of his buddies lived there. He could be perfectly content that his friends weren't trying to steal away his muse. Beckett was _his_ inspiration and they weren't having her.

If only he could have her, but although they were back on friendly terms, it wasn't getting any further, and he knew hardly anything more about her than he had four months ago. He firmly put the phone down, and went back out to the party.

No-one had noticed his absence. His guests were all variously enthralled with each other, even Alexis. A naughty little thought said _no-one would notice if you took a time out_. He pushed it away, and socialised. It came back, insinuating. It didn't take long for Castle to succumb to its lures. He slipped into his bedroom, and changed – Beckett hadn't been in fancy dress – picked up a warm coat, and slid out without a single person noticing.

Five minutes later he was heading for Riverside Drive and the small dot which represented Beckett's phone. He had absolutely no idea how he was going to find the party she was at, because the dot wasn't helpful. It said that she was in the Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, which was clearly nonsense. Nobody would throw a party in a cemetery. It must be close, or – more likely – she'd left her phone in her car.

He slowly cruised up 153rd Street, looking for a parking space, and for any signs or sounds of a party. There were apartments, but no obvious parties. There was, however – right _there_ – Beckett's cruiser. Right in front of the cemetery gates. Which were shut, and locked. He looked around, but there was no sign of Beckett, and no sign of any party worthy of the name. He checked his phone, which still, stupidly, insisted that Beckett was inside the cemetery. He stared at the gates, and then his phone, and set hand to the cold iron of the gate.

The wind whined. It sounded unpleasantly like _who-oooooo-'s thisssssssssssss_ to Castle's terrified ears. He pushed at the gate, and it opened just enough for him to squeeze through. Of course the lock hadn't stretched. Iron locks didn't stretch. It had been a trick of the light, and it hadn't really been locked at all, merely shut.

He slipped into the cemetery. The thin wind gnawed at his cashmere pea coat, searching for entrance; tugged at the ends of his scarf. The gibbous moon shed little light; the shadows of the gravestones and memorials stretched long and black about him, reaching to capture the few patches of pallid illumination. Attenuated streamers of cloud tumbled through the sky, whipped on by the whining wind: the stars were chill between the clouds.

The trees rustled, a few leaves fell. At every sound, Castle startled, the crunch of his shoes on dead leaves unpleasantly loud: almost, he thought, attracting the chill wind to him. He shook his head. That was fanciful, even for him. He checked his phone. She was definitely here. There was a _lot_ of here, though, and he was scared. Really scared. There was no reason at all for Beckett to be in a cemetery after eleven p.m. on Hallowe'en. None at all.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._

 _My effort for the Castle Hallowe'en Bash 2018. Four chapters. Posting will be Sunday/Wednesday to finish, appropriately, on Hallowe'en itself._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Thick silence suffocated him. He didn't dare use the flashlight on his phone – _something_ might have found him, there among the dead late on the night of Hallowe'en. Despite the moon, the world was very dark around him. _A frightful fiend doth close behind me tread_ , he thought, and shuddered in terror that it might be true. He flicked around, but nothing was there. Nothing was visible. If only he couldn't half-hear movements, small sounds in the deathly stillness. His heart hammered – but his curiosity hammered harder. _Curiosity killed the cat_ , he thought. Or maybe in this case, the Castle.

He walked on, through the graves. The chill in the air wasn't simply the sinking temperature. Each headstone, each tablet, each looming monument and granite-cased memory added its weight of grief and misery, pain and suffering, to the atmosphere. The shadows reached and grasped: long, distorted skeletons. No light-hearted decorations here. No pleasurably shared shivering, nor warmth of another life. Only the lazy wind whining, and the chill dread of a cold grave waiting. He checked his phone, again, and found that her small blue dot hadn't moved. His hands shook in his pockets as he returned the phone, terror coursing through him. Why, _why_ was she here?

And then he saw her, and stopped dead.

She was surrounded by a cloud of mist: kneeling on the grass, head a little bent in ghastly reverence, left arm some way extended.

Her face was white and gaunt. Blood dripped from her wrist into a small bowl on the grass before a grave. _The skull beneath the skin_ , he thought, terrified. The wind whipped up the trails of mist. It must have been mist, because there was nothing else it could be: thin shreds of vapour swirling – but when he looked around, they were only here: only around her, thicker around the bowl.

The blood was dripping, but the bowl was clean: white as bone. _Bone china_ , he told himself, and knew it for a lie. She still wore the same stark black as she had when she had left his loft: her coat laid aside. Her skin was as sickly pallid as her face, but her eyes gleamed in the cold moon's light.

 _On All Hallows' Eve, the veil is thin, for those who have eyes to see and strength to look_.

He couldn't have said from where the words arrived in his head, for surely none had spoken them. He took another step, and another. The dead leaves rustled, but she didn't hear, as she hadn't seen. Her eyes were elsewhere, looking at another world. From the corner of his eye, he could almost see forms: transparent, grey, and ghastly. Still her blood dripped, thick and slow, and surely it should be clotting? Surely it should stop? And yet, it flowed, as dark as the night around them; and yet the small bowl remained pristine, unstained; and yet the mists ebbed and rose.

He looked much harder, and the mists began to change shape: to form, and reform, into figures. Movement was impossible: his feet frozen to the ground, his heartbeats measured out in the blood dripping from Beckett's left wrist.

Suddenly, it all came into focus. The mists became solid: people, clothed, and speaking. These were no skeletons or ghosts, now, but ordinary people.

If, that was, he discounted the presence of the wounds that had caused their deaths.

A susurration ran through the air, and the dead turned to Castle. He would have turned and fled, if only he could force his feet to move. Instead, he stood, petrified, and watched the dead approach.

 _He sees us_.

 _Why is he here? He doesn't belong._

 _He sees us, though. He must belong._

 _He hasn't paid._

 _She pays. Look how he watches her. She pays. Can't you see it hurting him?_

 _He's not like her. He should pay._

The ghastly forms surrounded him, closing in, covering him.

 _He should pay!_

"No." The word fell as heavily as death. "Leave him be. I pay. At the end of the night, you will be with me, and I am paying, as I always have, as I always do, as I always will. Leave him be."

 _But he sees us!_

"I said _No_."

The dead fell back, and Castle breathed again. Beckett still knelt on the grass.

"You are mine, not his. Leave him be." Cold command backed her words.

 _We are yours._

 _He doesn't belong._

"He belongs to me." Castle startled. "Just as you do. I have paid."

 _He should pay too._

"No. One payment. One that pays for all. Take your payment. Time is running down."

The forms coalesced around Beckett again. In all that time she hadn't looked at Castle once: her focus and will entirely on her living ghosts. They – oh, thank Christ, he couldn't have borne to watch that – touched the blood, they didn't drink it. But still, they weren't satisfied.

 _We belong. Prove he does._

"I need prove _nothing_ to you. Who gives you a night's life? Who finds you justice?"

 _We help you. We give you answers._

"I would find them myself. I don't need you. I give you justice because _that is my life_."

The ghosts were silent, assessing, still absorbing Beckett's blood: the slow drip uncanny and unreal. Blood didn't flow like that: steady drops; it should gush, then slow, then stop. She should be affected by the loss, and yet, apart from the marble whiteness to her skin, there was nothing: no tremor, no weakness.

 _Prove he belongs_ , they insisted.

Gleaming eyes, more green than hazel, flashed. "You ask too much. You're mine. You know it."

 _Prove he is too._

She sighed. "If you want to waste your time on this..."

 _Prove it! We're hungry._

"Then feed. That was the deal. I pay. No-one else."

 _No. He's here. He sees us. He could pay too._

"No. He won't pay."

 _He has to. He came here. He has to pay. There are rules. If you want him to leave, he has to pay._

"He's mine."

 _No matter. There are rules to be followed. If he could enter, and see, then he can pay. Those who see, must pay. He must pay. Or never leave._

Her head turned to Castle: eyes hard in an alabaster face.

"Come here." He went. "Kneel." He did. No thought of disobeying crossed his mind. Danger surrounded him: and the dead were hungry. He realised, trembling, that he was in too deep to save himself. "You shouldn't have come here." It was a bit late for that now. Her face was set, unsmiling. "Do exactly as I say. Don't speak. Don't hesitate. Don't flinch."

The shadows puddled round him, grasping; the dead encircled them. He didn't dare to look at anything other than Beckett's chill, pale face: as if she were as dead as those which – not _who_ – surrounded her.

"Take your coat off." He did, folding it neatly and setting it by hers. "Now your watch." It followed. His gaze flickered to her bloodied wrist. She set the bowl between them, facing him. "Give me your hand."

The ghosts closed in: avid, staring, desperate. The moonlight was reflected in the keen blade in Beckett's hand.

She slashed across his wrist in one sure movement, and then pressed her own opened wrist to his. Mingled blood fell. He felt no pain, nor cold.

"It's done," she said. "He pays too."

Her face changed. "What..."

Castle simply stared at her.

Around them, the dead fell silent: no whispers, no movement.

"What just happened? I can feel your heart beating."

"I...I can feel yours." He gulped.

Around them, the dead absorbed the dripping blood, and returned to the shadows, sated, watching and waiting.

 _We're his too, now._

 _Two of you._

 _Two...oooo of yoooooouuuuuuu._

The voices faded, leaving only mists around them.

"Put your coat on. We need to go."

"Uh?"

"It's after midnight. We need to go. Well, I do. You can stay if you like." Beckett had already clasped her watch and donned her coat.

"But..." Castle looked at his wrist. The wound had closed, with only a tiny roughness when he ran fingers over it to mark the slice. "Oh."

They walked out together, a fine mist trailing them.

"Hold on," Castle said, as they reached Beckett's car. "How did we get out?"

"Through the gate."

"I... but I don't remember opening it."

"You didn't."

"But you didn't...I walked through it? I thought you meant I'd be okay! I don't feel dead! Am I dead?"

"No more than I am."

Which Castle did _not_ find reassuring, after midnight on Hallowe'en. "Are you dead?"

"No. Don't be ridiculous."

"I just watched you lose a pint of blood in a way that's totally impossible" –

"There's something you _don't_ believe?" –

"Totally impossible and I saw ghosts and now I've walked through an iron gate and I can still feel your heartbeat and _what is going on here Beckett_ because I really don't like this." He finally drew breath.

"Get used to it."

"What did you say?"

"Get used to it. This is your life now."

"My life?"

"You shouldn't have followed me," she said wearily.

"But what _is_ it?"

"The dead."

Castle shivered. "The dead?"

"What did you _think_ they were? And now they're yours too. Enjoy it."

She turned to unlock her car.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"But..."

"You'd better go back to your party. They'll be missing you."

"But... what's happening? I can feel your heart." He reached for her hand. "Something happened."

She didn't say anything. Shadows shrouded her face, and once more the mists laced around her. The street seemed darker, suddenly, and the wind whined.

"Something...happened," Castle said slowly. "And..." he concentrated, still holding her hand. "You know what happened... uh..." He concentrated harder. "Oh. Oh my God. OhmyGod. _Blood brothers_? Well, siblings."

She yanked her hand from his. The mist closed around her, shielding her. Hostility thickened the air. Castle focused. That wasn't all there was. Hostility, sure; anger – nothing new there, then – and... fear? The feelings were severed as her hand left his, before he could identify them all.

"Go home. See to your guests."

Her car door slammed shut, and she took off. Castle watched the red tail lights until they turned off, and then slowly paced to his own car. The wind whined and whispered some more, and the streetlights didn't pierce the darkness thrown by the grasping tree branches. He shivered again, and pulled his coat more tightly around himself. The night was full of half-heard sounds and half-seen movements, plucking his taut nerves. He was very alone.

 _Not alone_.

He jumped like a jackrabbit and practically ran to the car, huddling into the driver's seat and locking the door behind him. Suddenly, he wanted to be home, where there was light and life and warmth and happy noise. And whisky. He badly needed to have a drink.

 _We're with you_ , slithered by his ears. He ignored it, all the way home. Sure, he was open-minded. But not _that_ wide open. Beckett must have been pranking him. He completely disregarded the unlikelihood of Beckett arranging for the three-D sound and light show that the prank would have required.

At home, the party was still in full swing, and – astonishingly – no-one had noticed his absence. He changed back to his space cowboy outfit, threw himself into the remains of the festivities and resolutely did not think about a single second of the last two hours or so, even when it seemed that the windows were cloudy and the fake cobwebs were rather larger than he remembered.

The last revellers evicted, he washed, wrapped himself in a warm robe, and repaired to his study for a nightcap of his best Scotch. The fine spirit warmed his throat, and he relaxed, safe in his sanctuary, and then went to bed.

* * *

Beckett drove home through the darkness and the sullen sodium streetlights, still chilled in body and soul. She shouldn't be chilled: she never felt the cold, now. _But Castle did_ , said a small clear voice in her head. She flung her coat down and poured herself a stiff drink, throwing it back, desperate for the burn. What had happened?

 _You know what happened_.

She did. Castle's insane curiosity had got him into yet another dangerous situation. Once he'd walked into the graveyard, close to midnight on Hallowe'en, once he had looked and seen the dead, living; seen her payment – she'd had no options. She'd taken the only action that could possibly have saved him: spending her own blood and praying that she wouldn't be leaving him there, with her other dead: she had had no idea whether it would work and what the consequences might be. Because she knew that there would be consequences. There were always consequences to consorting with the dead.

And now she could feel a second, slower, heartbeat alongside her own, and when he'd touched her she'd felt his thoughts and panicked.

 _We're his too, now._

 _So are you._

Oh, _shit_.

 _And he is yours._

 _Blood bonding._

Oh, _fuck_. What had she _done_? But she knew. Hallowe'en wasn't simply superstition and trick-or-treat: it was older than most living persons dreamed, and carried weight, for those who were...otherwise. For those who, as she had had, eyes to see and strength to look; for those who paid a price for their...companions.

She'd had to save him: out there in the dark where the dead had roamed, hungry and searching; she'd had to pay their price, this year as every year. But _this_ price too? This strange connection; this other heartbeat next to hers? This bittersweet knowledge?

 _We were stronger, with both of you._

Her dead sounded profoundly satisfied. She shuddered.

* * *

When he woke in the morning, he was convinced that it had all been a dream.

Right up until he found a faint white line slashing across his left wrist. He hurried to put his watch over it, and hastened to the bullpen where he would find Beckett and prove that it had all been a total illusion. He was really looking forward to their coffees: in fact, he could almost taste it.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

"Coffee service," he said happily.

"Thanks."

Castle sat down. Everything was just as usual. It had all been a dream – he'd nodded off when he took a short break from the party and imagined it all. Beckett was glaring at the murder board, just as usual; tapping impatient fingers, just as usual; drinking her coffee, just as usual...

What the hell? He could, very clearly, taste vanilla in the back of his throat. And he could feel a second pulse...

No no no. This was not happening. He was imagining things. Not enough coffee. Or too much coffee. Or not enough sleep. A draught skimmed his neck, and he shuddered. He was cold. Maybe he was sick. Another coffee would help. He gave the murder board a last glance, and trudged off to the coffee machine.

 _Look for the blue van with Pennsylvania plates._

"What?"

Silence answered him. He picked up his coffee mug, and the steam writhed around his hands.

"Can I get one too?"

Beckett had come in.

"Sure."

He fussed with the machine, and turned to her while it steamed and dripped. He'd almost think there was a hint of fuzziness around her, but when he looked properly, it was gone. A wisp of steam from the machine, that was all.

And yet, he could feel a second pulse, a little faster than his, beating in his veins. Suddenly his favourite song was very, very scary. He handed over her mug, touching her cool fingers – and just for an instant his vision doubled and he could see himself... but not quite himself. He shook his head, and the doubling disappeared.

"Something wrong?" Beckett asked.

"No..." he said, but even to himself he didn't sound certain.

Beckett drained her mug without a care for her throat lining and rinsed it out.

"Beckett..."

"Yeah?"

"Last night...um...I had this really weird dream... at least I think it was a dream but it felt really real."

She raised an eyebrow. Cold dread chilled her.

"Are you okay?" Castle asked.

"Yeah, why?"

He shook his head again. "I think I'm sick."

"More like tired. If you will throw late night parties on a school night..."

"It's not that."

She quivered. She knew what was happening. Tiny curls of mist pretended to be steam from the coffee machine. Her pulse raced.

 _Blue van. Pennsylvania plates_ , the dead whispered to her.

"I... look, this sounds crazy, okay, but... I think I can feel your heartbeat." He hitched. "It's going really fast right now." He hesitated again. "What happened last night?" he blurted out.

"This isn't the time or the place."

"I need to know."

"Later," she said, as spare and clean as the bones of the dead in their graves. "After eight. My apartment."

She stalked out again. Faintly, Castle heard her talking to Ryan. "That blue van – Pennsylvania plates. Run it." He startled. How had she known? He hadn't told her.

How had _he_ known?

 _You are ours._

 _We know things._

 _We tell things._

 _We want justice._

He was, quite definitely, going crazy. He went back to his chair at Beckett's desk, and stared at the murder board, seeing nothing. The cops were buzzing round getting traffic footage and running the van, and there was nothing he could do but fret and fidget. Before that could annoy Beckett to the point of murder, he left.

With Castle gone, Beckett breathed a huge sigh of relief that she could bury herself in work and not think for one moment about the looming explanation.

After an intense shift chasing down the blue van, she trailed home, and hunched into her couch, unhappy. Wasn't it bad enough that she had this...accompaniment, without having to explain to Castle – and worse, to feel his heartbeat alongside hers; and sense his emotions. It wasn't that she didn't know: Castle wore his emotions on his sleeve most of the time, and he hadn't taken any trouble to disguise his desire for her.

And yet. There had been something more; something that scared her. More, if she could sense his emotions – then could he also sense hers? He'd said he could feel her heart...

 _We're stronger when you're both there._

That was not something she wanted to hear. "You had no right," she said, bitterly.

 _The rules are the rules._

"And is it in the rules that you help solve your own murders?"

 _It always has been._

 _Revenge is a dish best served cold._

 _What better revenge than seeing our murderers go to jail?_

 _Apart from rising from the dead?_

Beckett raised an acid smile of appreciation. Her dead tended to the sarcastic, except on Hallowe'en itself, when they became formal. Like called to like, she supposed.

"I see."

 _He saw. So he pays._

She shrugged, resigned, pulled her sweater around her. "So now I get to explain."

 _Yes._

"Great."

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The vapours swirled, and retreated. Beckett made herself yet another coffee, considered spiking it with vodka, and then decided that the only thing worse than explaining sober would be explaining drunk. However she put this, there was no good way to explain that Castle would spend the rest of his life surrounded by the dead. It was certainly going to put a serious cramp in his playboy existence.

The wind whistled around her windows. She went to stare out of the window, her eyes searching the dark, the waning moon and the thickening cloud. All Souls' Day was no less eerie than All Hallows Eve. She hadn't lit more than a single small lamp. It might be easier to explain in the dark. Dark to dark.

 _Blood to blood_.

"Or he would die, there in the cemetery on Hallowe'en. I _know_ that." She stared deeper into the night. "You drive a hard bargain."

 _We had no choice. We have rules._

"But you're not the one living with it. Why me?" she said to the darkness. "Why me?"

 _You had eyes to see and strength to look_.

 _You wanted justice more than anything. We give you that._

"I wanted justice for my mother."

 _Justice is justice. You do not get to choose for whom justice is done._

Her shoulders slumped. They always gave her the same answer. There was never any hope in their words, and yet she couldn't help hoping. One day, maybe, they'd give her a better answer...one day.

A knocking on the door jerked her from her melancholy. She went to open it, surefooted in the gloom, and found Castle: less suave than usual; a hint of fright in his eyes.

He stepped in.

"It's dark in here." His voice wasn't shaking, but Beckett could feel a strange suppressed trembling, as if there were a tension in her own shoulders. She switched another lamp on, and felt it ease. "Do you normally sit in the dark?"

"Reading light," she said briskly, pretending she couldn't feel his pulse hurrying. "Coffee?"

"Please."

He didn't sit down, but followed her to the brighter light of the kitchen, where the tendrils of mist which had arrived alongside him faded.

"Go sit down."

"It's okay."

She switched the kettle on and turned to face him. "I can make coffee without scalding myself."

Castle shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah."

"So stop hovering."

"It's light here," he said pathetically.

"You've never been scared of the dark. Sit by a lamp."

"Beckett..." He trailed off, and didn't move. She continued to make coffee, and was very careful not to touch him. "What happened last night?"

"Let's sit down."

She led him to the couch, and curled into one end.

"What happened?" he repeated. "I thought it was just a bad dream but it wasn't, was it? Because sitting here I can feel your heart beating and earlier someone was talking to me about blue vans with Pennsylvania plates and then you went out to ask Ryan about finding it but I never said anything so how did you know _and what is going on here_?"

Finally, he remembered to take a breath.

"What happened to me?" he asked, once more, miserably. "What were you doing in a cemetery with your wrist opened? Did I really see ghosts?"

She'd have thought, if asked, that Castle of all people would have been thoroughly delighted to find that he could see ghosts. He didn't seem delighted at all: his big frame slumped, his normally cheerful face lined and unhappy. She took a breath.

"You weren't dreaming." For the first time in her experience he was completely silent. "It was real." Her voice hardened. "You should never have followed me."

"I..." Castle started, and stopped, failing to find a good continuation for that sentence.

"Was it curiosity or jealousy?" Beckett jabbed, far too accurately for Castle's currently non-existent peace of mind.

"Er..."

"Both, then." It was flat and heavy. "I hope you think it was worth it."

Around them, mist became fog became blurred shapes, crowding around the couch, listening intently. Castle shuddered.

"Just tell me."

"These are the dead," she said bluntly. "Get used to them. You'll be seeing them for the rest of your life."

 _We're your dead._

 _You saw us. You looked, and saw. We can't be unseen. Now you're ours._

"What about the rest of it, though?"

"What rest of it? Isn't that enough for you?"

"Yes! No! What about the blood? You slit my wrist and the blood mixed. You're hiding something more. I can feel your heartbeat and there was more" – he grabbed her hands and held on very tightly. She tried to tug away and failed. "Don't. You haven't touched me since you slashed my wrist in the cemetery – and you haven't explained that yet. There's a reason, isn't there?"

She struggled to remove her hands, and failed. Castle hung on, and gradually his face changed. "I can... I can _feel_ you. You're in my head."

She knew. He was in hers.

" _What did you do_?" he cried.

"Saved your ungrateful life, you idiot! Would you rather have been dead?"

He dropped her hands. "No! But you're in my head. I have enough people in my head. Why'd you think I write? But I can't write _you_ out of my head."

"You think I want you in _my_ head? You're not even touching me right now and I can feel how much you hate me. Well, it was that or let you die but I don't have to put up with this. Get out of here so that you don't have to be troubled with my feelings. I damn sure don't want to have yours."

She surged up and away from him, surrounded by the ghosts.

"Isn't it bad enough that I have to have you following me everywhere I go and poking into matters that aren't your fucking business without having you in my head too? Don't I get any privacy? Get _out_!"

She hammered upstairs, and a door slammed. Castle simply sat, too devastated to move, utterly miserable. He'd frequently wished he knew what Beckett was thinking, never believing he would.

It wasn't anything like he'd imagined. He'd thought – when it was an impossibility, a fantasy, a silly idea from science fiction – that it would be fun; that there would be no misunderstandings, no difficulties. But she was upstairs crying and he was downstairs and might as well be crying because this whole fuck up hadn't solved anything at all.

 _No._

 _We solve our murders._

"I didn't want you," Castle said bitterly to the ghosts.

 _You have us_.

He ignored them. Upstairs, Beckett was still crying, miserably furious.

Hold on. How could he possibly know that?

Because he was close enough to sense how she felt.

And...she had...oh fuck...thought she'd sensed how he felt...oh _fuck_.

It seemed that whatever had happened was just one more way for them to misunderstand each other. He'd meant...the same as she'd yelled. He wanted privacy inside his own head. He had too many fragments of people in his head: characters, acquaintances, enemies...friends; the only way to stay sane was to write them out of his head and into his books. He detested the idea that there might be someone else who could sense his emotions, know his inner thoughts: who'd be in his head and _couldn't_ be evicted.

The fast beat of her heart in his veins was one step too far. He buried his face in his hands. His life was never going to be the same.

In her bedroom, Beckett had flung herself on to her bed, face down in her pillows, and wished passionately that she'd never met Richard Castle.

 _We are stronger with both of you._

"Why should I care?"

 _You didn't have to save him._

She didn't have an answer to that. She couldn't have let anyone die. But now she could feel a heavy, torpid heartbeat in her veins, and feel a sluggish, horrible hatred in her head.

She could hear a slow, inexorable tread ascending the stairs, and knew it for Castle. She could sense him, and had no way to block it out. She'd need to learn, fast. Of course, he wouldn't be around much, so maybe it wouldn't matter. The dead gathered around her, leeching from her locked-down emotions, chilling her skin. They were always there. No doubt she would soon be as cold and emotionless as they: the search for justice her only passion.

"Beckett?" came uncertainly from the door. "Can I come in?"

"Why not?" she said coldly. "I'm sure you can bear my presence for another few moments, though I have to say I thought you'd be long gone. I don't need to guess what you feel any more. It's right there."

"You're wrong. It's not you" –

"It's me? Yeah. I think I got that."

"No. I hate the situation."

"And I got you into it so you hate me too. I got it. You don't need to say it. You don't need to say anything any more. I can't get away from you."

 _We..._

 _We are sorry._

Both of them heard it.

"And what good does that do?" Beckett snapped.

 _None. But we are._

 _We..._

"We what?"

 _We are sorry._

Castle finally stopped hesitating in the doorframe and came in, to sit on the bed. He reached for her, but she pulled her hands out of the way.

"Don't," he said. "I didn't finish. It's not you. I don't hate you. I _couldn't_."

 _Good._

"Shut up," Beckett snapped at her dead. "You have nothing to add here."

"I always thought that things would be _easier_ if I knew what you were thinking," Castle continued, ignoring the dead. "Or if you knew what I thought. But all that's happened is a whole new bunch of misunderstandings."

"I can't _misunderstand_ ," she spat, "that you hate me."

"I _don't_. I hate the situation because it's making both of us unhappy. But I don't hate you. I never could." He reached for her hands again, and this time caught them. "Look. Look _properly_." But some things were to be private. He shut them away.

 _Look_ , said the dead in chorus. _See the truth._

 _You say you want the truth. So look for it._

Her fingers gripped his, and she deliberately allowed herself to feel.

After some seconds of silence, Castle dared to raise his eyes. Beckett's gaze was turned inward, sightless. He waited, terrified: the dead clustering around them, smothering.

 _Patience._

"I see," she finally said. It wasn't encouraging. It wasn't, yet, discouraging. "How do you _live_ in that head?"

"Uh?"

"It's chaotic. It's like being inside an exploding firework."

"It's creativity. Inspirations. Ideas," Castle said, offended. "And it's _my_ head, not yours."

There was a ghostly snicker.

"Shut up," they both snapped.

"Don't worry. I wouldn't want to be in your head."

She didn't want to be in his head. Because now she couldn't dismiss him as a here-today-gone-tomorrow playboy. She'd seen more than she expected. More than she could handle, right now. For an instant, she wished for the same lack of emotions as her dead displayed: their only passion justice for themselves. That found: they dissolved, or, if one had faith, moved on.

"You just were. My turn."

" _What_?"

"My turn. You got to see the truth, I get to see the truth."

She held his eyes, assessing, then ducked her head sharply in assent. So might she have accepted the guillotine.

She felt nothing: some minimal consolation. She kept her thoughts private, but now... Now, they'd never be private again.

 _There is no hiding from the dead._

"I'm not dead."

 _Are you sure?_

 _Those who can see us, share in us._

"We're dead?" Castle whispered.

 _No. Just...different._

"Seen what you want to?" Beckett gritted.

"Enough." He didn't drop her hands. "You're all little sealed boxes. Locked down. But they're leaking."

She scraped in a breath. "I think you should leave. Now."

"I think you're lying. You don't want me to leave. Earlier, you wanted me to leave because you thought I hated _you_. That's not true and now you know it. You were upset because you didn't want me to hate you."

"I'm not having this conversation now." She yanked her hands free.

"If not now, when? Or are you just going to ignore it like you ignore everything else? How are you going to manage that when we're in each other's head, huh? How?"

"I can shut you out of my head."

 _No._

 _You can't._

 _Once you mixed your blood, there was no way out._

 _You chose to save him._

"How could I do anything else? 'What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'" she quoted bitterly. "But I didn't agree to this price. Haven't I paid enough?"

 _You chose._

"I didn't choose you. You came. I never chose you. I didn't choose any of this."

 _You chose him_.

"I" – she stopped.

The ghosts waited. The room was dark, the pall of pain palpable. Moonlight gleamed faintly on the wooden floor. Harsh breathing scratched the air: the only sound in the silence. Castle barely twitched.

 _He chose to trust you._

 _You know he did. You saw it._

 _He let you slash his wrist and make the blood flow. He trusted you wouldn't kill him._

"It was tempting," Beckett muttered, but the ghosts and Castle heard the lie. He took her hands again, but they lay limp in his as she argued with her dead, deep in the shadowed room. So far, telepathy was excruciatingly painful.

 _You trusted that he would obey when it really mattered._

"I don't want this."

A sentiment with which Castle was entirely in agreement.

The shades of the dead were silent.

"What do we do with them?" he asked. Anything, to break the strain around them.

"Listen. Solve their murders. Nothing I wouldn't be doing anyway."

She was hunched over, and if he hadn't been holding her lax hands she'd have had her arms around her knees, head down, locking him out. For once, he took the hint.

"I'd better go," he said.

"Yes."

He went back downstairs, and collected his coat. As he left, the shadowy mists gathered around him.

At home, he shut himself in his study, laptop open but no words on the page, and contemplated the disaster into which curiosity (and jealousy) had led him. The tot of whisky didn't help. His study was full of shades, lurking in corners and half-seen at the edge of his vision. No matter how many lights blazed, they remained.

No matter how he tried to ignore it, Beckett's heartbeat pulsed alongside his, and her misery seeped poisonously into his mind. Abruptly, the misery cut out. He panicked for a second, and then realised that her pulse had slowed: she had fallen asleep. At least, he thought spitefully, his dreams would be his own.

Beckett's dreams – or nightmares – were most certainly her own. When she woke, the slow heartbeat of another was still in her veins, and her dead were still clustered around her. The only improvement was that she couldn't feel Castle's sullen hurt. She had no idea what to do.

 _Get used to it._

"That's not helpful."

 _Talk about it._

"We did. You were there. It didn't help. Has this ever happened before?"

 _Yes._

"And?" said Beckett into the ominous silence.

 _They both died._

"What?"

 _They couldn't cope. They both died._

After that, there was a protracted silence. Beckett buried herself in her work, and knew instantly when Castle woke from the change in his pulse. The sensation of sullen dislike was gone, however, which had to be an improvement. Insensibly, she eased.

When he produced coffee, she eased further: and as she accepted the cup, she also felt a surge of relief that wasn't hers.

 _Better_ , the dead whispered. _Better_.

"We need to talk," she said quietly, and felt his pulse kick up and terror flood through him. "Not like that," she said swiftly.

"Not now."

"No. We've got a blue van to find. Let's see what Ryan's got."

Ryan had a blue van, and was happily tracing its journey and ownership. Espo was enthusiastically helping. The dead peered over their shoulders, unnoticed by the two detectives. So passed the day, culminating in an ID, an address, and a particularly satisfying interrogation resulting in a confession. A shade disappeared, much to Castle's bewilderment.

"Later," Beckett murmured.

"It is later."

"We need to finish the paperwork. You don't have to stay. Come round after dinner."

Beckett had been much reassured by the lack of sullen resentment, though she had found the constant flow of Castle's uncontrolled emotions and the strangely doubled, out of sync pulse rate extremely...difficult. Not – quite – annoying. Certainly not comfortable. Knowing that he was most likely feeling the same did not improve anything. She trailed home and made herself a comforting meal of mac'n'cheese with added bacon. For once, the meat hadn't gone green in her fridge. A glass of wine did a lot to help. Unfortunately, it did nothing to block Castle.

 _It's not that easy._

 _You'll need to co-operate._

 _Trust each other._

Beckett downed her wine in three mouthfuls and refilled the glass. After some thought, she put out a glass for Castle, in case he needed a drink too.

He was late. When he finally knocked, Beckett had had plenty of time to think that he'd bailed.

"You're nervous," were the first words from his mouth, which didn't really help anything.

"Don't do that."

"I can't help it. Your heart's going at a hundred beats a minute and it frightens me."

"We need to fix this."

"Yeah."

"Want some wine?"

"Definitely, please."

Half of Castle's wine disappeared before he'd even sat down. Beckett refilled his glass, and then her own.

"Um..." he said, "I have a theory."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Well...um... they" – it was very noticeable that Castle hadn't yet called them _dead_ – "kept saying _trust each other_ " –

"They said that to you too?"

"I don't know, okay? Maybe they said it to you and I heard it through your ears. I don't know what's _me_ any more and what's _you_. Anyway, they said it. So...um...if we held hands and actually opened up...um...it might be easier?"

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers._

 _By way of warning, the final chapter contains M-rated content._


	4. Chapter 4

_Reminder that this chapter is M-rated._

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

Beckett stared at him. Tonight, all the lights were on, and he could see her clearly.

"Didn't we do that last night?"

"No. Well, I didn't, and I'm pretty sure you didn't, because I felt much more when I took your hand outside the cemetery than I did last night and I think I saw me through your eyes in the precinct which was nothing at all like looking in the mirror" –

"Which you do at every opportunity" –

"Mean. Very mean."

"But true."

 _Trussssttttt..._ wound through the air.

"Not the point," Castle said impatiently. "The _point_ is that we both tried to hide. So maybe if we didn't and really let each other in..."

"You said you didn't want me in your head."

"So did you. Not want me, that is, you can't not want you in your head: it's your head."

"You want to rummage round in my head."

"No-o...I just want us both to do it properly."

The horrified silence stretched tight enough to snap.

"You mean it?" she squeaked.

"Yeah," he said heavily. "It'll either work... or it won't."

"I hope you've made your will."

"What?"

"If it doesn't work we die."

 _They couldn't cope._

 _They died._

"When?" Beckett suddenly asked, very sharply.

 _A while after._

"Be specific. Days, months, years? You're not telling me the truth."

 _We do not lie._

"No, but you're sure being evasive right now. So, when?"

 _Years._

Beckett waited, meaningfully.

 _Many years._

"I see. So there's no hurry."

Castle made a small, strangled noise, which Beckett ignored.

 _Those were not happy years._

 _They were bound together._

 _But they hated it._

 _And then each other._

 _Years of resentment and dislike, feeding back and forth and growing on itself._

"So what happened?"

 _One killed the other, then killed themselves._

"Oh."

They shuddered in unison.

"That's...not a good outcome," Castle said shakily. "I don't want to end up like that."

"Nor me," Beckett agreed, shivering. "That's horrible." She focused on her dead, who were watching them with hungry interest.

 _We only need emotion between you. We do not care what it is._

 _If you don't want to trust each other, we will use the hatred._

 _We'd prefer trust. It's stronger_ , one disagreed.

 _We would be stronger, either way._

"Do they talk to you all the time?"

"Yeah. Well. Mostly."

"Oh."

"But they're polite. Mostly. They don't talk over my TV shows." She coloured delicately. "They leave if...um...visitors are here."

"So that's why I never spotted them."

"You wouldn't have spotted them. You'd just have been a bit cold."

"Like you?"

"I don't get cold any more."

Castle's brain suddenly caught up with his ears. "Visitors?" he queried. "As in...boyfriend type visitors?"

"Or my dad," Beckett said quellingly. "Or friends. Lanie."

"I'd have thought she'd love to meet the dead. She talks to her corpses like they're still alive."

 _She can't see_ , a ghost murmured. It sounded disappointed.

"We're stalling," Beckett pointed out.

"Yeah. Can I get some more wine, please?"

"Yeah." She poured. Castle slugged it back. "Moving a little fast there."

"Anaesthetic."

"Good plan." She had another gulp herself. "Let's do this."

Her hands stretched to his. Castle met them, and their fingers interlinked. There was a long pause. The ghosts waited patiently.

"That was totally weird."

"I don't look like that," Beckett said.

Their hands were still locked.

"Nor me."

The dead clustered around them, more solid, more demanding. Insensibly, the living drew closer together, and then closer still.

"Do we need to talk about this? What we saw?" Castle said. His voice trembled, and his hands gripped more tightly.

"Need? Yeah, most likely. Want – no."

"We can't not talk about it. But..." He released one of her hands, and promptly tucked the free arm around her shoulders. "Come here." He pressed gently, and she snuggled in, laying her dark head on his shoulder. "We don't have to talk now. Just... let's get used to it."

"It's a lot." She paused. "Why didn't you say?"

"Why didn't you?"

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"We were both scared," Castle said, eventually. "I still am," he added. "I didn't expect all this."

"I didn't either."

Another span of now-serene silence passed. The dead still surrounded them, anticipating...something. Neither of the living was sure what.

"I saw," Castle said hesitantly, "what you, um, really think of me. So you must have seen the same."

Shades pressed in, as if watching the climax of a movie, warming themselves on Beckett's blush. She nodded. It was just as well. If she had said anything, it was inaudible. Castle tipped her face up.

"Don't hide."

"It's not as if we _can_ hide."

"Guess not. So... can I kiss you?" Her heart hammered in his veins.

She reached up, pulled his head down and kissed him, in lieu of answers.

The dead disappeared. As they went, the lights also all went out, apart from one side lamp.

"What – they've gone!"

"They'll be back," Beckett said. "Just not now." And she kissed him again.

Since Castle would far rather kiss Beckett than face up to any more unreality, he did so. Soft exploration lasted a matter of seconds before it became hard and demanding – from both sides. Beckett kissed the same way she investigated: without compromise. Castle fought back: pulling her on to his lap, raiding and being raided in return. His hands knotted in her hair, hers were around his neck: words were forgotten.

Suddenly Beckett pulled away.

"What's wrong?"

"It feels _weird_." She blushed luridly. "Uh...I can feel you."

"I certainly hope so," Castle smirked on autopilot – and then stopped. "Oh. Um. Yeah. I get it. Um...me too?" Now he thought about it, he had the most peculiar sensation of flexing muscles where he had never had muscles before: an odd sensation of an empty space waiting – wanting – to be filled. "Um... do you feel as if you've got different, er, bits?"

The blush would light fires. There was an embarrassed nod, and pause.

"It's gone away."

"Yeah, I bet," Castle said. "Nothing like knowing the reaction to every move I make'll be fed right back to me to depress performance."

"I hadn't even thought of that!"

Beckett started trying to scramble away. Castle caught her.

"Don't run away. I'll think you don't like me." He batted his eyelashes at her. "Besides which, I know you liked kissing me. You kept doing it." He grinned, rather forcedly. "And I sure liked kissing you. So we should do that some more." He pulled her back on to his lap and snuggled her into his arms. "And if we get this right, the sex will be _spectacular_. Double orgasms every time."

Beckett punched his shoulder. "That's your take on this?" she squawked.

"It's better than knowing how you rate me out of ten."

"I wouldn't."

"Consciously."

"Oh. Oh, _shit_. This is horrible."

She curled back against him. He had an odd sensation of warmth and safety. So _that_ was how she felt in his arms. He liked that. One half-pennyworth of bread, against an intolerable deal of sack, as the Bard had it. He nuzzled into her hair, and she nestled closer.

After a while, Beckett spoke. "That's nice," she said. "You like hugging."

"You like being hugged. Win-win."

"Still weird, but good weird."

"Okay." He decided to seize the moment, and dipped his head to kiss her. Once more, she kissed him back, both falling into the one thing in all this mess which was absolutely, definitely, positively _right_. He had a thought.

"I was wrong," he announced.

"Yeah? That happens several times a day. Why this time?"

"Stop being mean. Sex is going to be _amazing_ " –

"What?"

"Because I'll know exactly whether you like anything or everything and can change it round straight away! No trying to interpret anything or missing clues. I'll feel it just like you would."

She gleeped.

"What? It'll be _amazing_ ," he bounced again.

Beckett regarded Castle dyspeptically. "Who says we're having sex?" she enquired, with a delicate edge.

"Well, not now, obviously, but when we do" –

"When? Rather presumptuous of you." The edge was much more apparent.

Castle smiled lazily. "That's mean. And it won't work any more, anyway. I can feel that you're teasing me." He paused. "Among other things I can feel."

"That's not fair," she grumped. It certainly wasn't. At least her dead had – temporarily – departed.

"So since I can feel you, and you can feel me, why don't we spend some time feeling each other?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"That sounded dirtier than" –

"No, you meant it exactly how it sounded."

"That doesn't make it a bad plan."

"You're the one who stopped."

Castle gaped, then pounced. "You're" – kiss – "a tease" – a nibble on her lip – "a total witch" – a move round to her neck, which simultaneously caused her to wriggle and a reflected heat to bloom between Castle's thighs – "and you really like that."

She did. In retaliation, she tried a dirty wet kiss of her own, trailing over the taut cords of his neck, and found that it provoked a most interesting response, every inch of which she could feel, in strange doubled sensation, against her and from her.

And then she stopped even _trying_ to analyse which were her feelings and which were his, or trying to distinguish her sensations and reactions from his, and simply kissed him as if it were her first time, and he her first lover. Because now, he would surely be her last, and this her last first time.

Clever fingers – but whose? – opened shirts; questing hands explored – but who explored, and who was the undiscovered country? – mouths met and tongues tangled and teased and tasted.

"Bed," one enticed.

"Yeah," the other agreed, but who suggested and who acceded couldn't be told.

Clothes fell around them, shirts shoved from shoulders to stroke and tease and play with the curves and muscle and nipples beneath; belts loosened, buttons undone, zippers zinging downwards and pants falling to the floor afterwards; exposing the flare of hips, the width of thighs; lean litheness and broad strength.

When he palmed and played with her neat, firm breasts, he could feel a similar sensation at his chest; when she took him in hand and stroked, she felt a strange tension and heat: a need to _push_ ; as he moved downwards the anticipation in his head wasn't all his own and the hard clench between his legs was surely hers; when he licked across her the sense of outright satisfaction and predatory possession was surely not hers. She could taste herself on his tongue; he experienced every twist and writhe; she was rock hard and he was drenched and when he slid up her body and she/he guided him/her home they both thrust and both opened and both exploded and collapsed.

Castle, mostly himself again, rolled off and felt Beckett's complete laxity and satisfaction as he cuddled her in; as, he was sure, she could feel all of his. Arms wrapped around each other, and again there was that same doubleness; a warm surrounding together with the uncanny almost-heard beat of his own heart through another's ears.

Beckett, safely snuggled against Castle's broad, muscular chest, both heard and felt his pulse slow to match hers.

"That was amazing," she said softly, and curled her hand around his shoulder, petting.

"I told you it would be," Castle said smugly. "Ow! Don't pinch me."

She didn't say anything, but he caught her smirk clearly.

"So," he said, "what was all that about the van? And why did one of them disappear?"

" _This_ is your idea of pillow talk?"

"You live and breathe death – more literally than I thought, but you do. So why not? Anyway, I'm a mystery writer, so it comes naturally."

Beckett sighed. "Okay. One of the dead told me about the van. They want their murders solved, so they help. They can't always be direct – they don't always know – but they give me hints and clues where they can."

He goggled.

"Come on, Castle. Haven't you heard of the restless, vengeful dead?"

"Of course I have!"

She waited.

"Oh! Oh, wow. So they help you solve their crimes for _revenge_?"

"Revenge is a dish best served cold – and the dead are certainly cold."

"But it disappeared."

"Crime solved, perp put away – they disappear. Move on. No-one knows to what, or where."

"Didn't you ask?"

"Yes. They don't know. A leap into the unknown future."

"Like death for us."

She shuddered. "Yes."

"I don't want to be a ghost."

"Or dead."

"It doesn't seem to cramp their style."

"You want to be murdered?"

"No," he agreed. "Definitely not."

A comfortably cosy quiet descended. Beckett's long, elegant fingers were still on Castle's shoulder; he fidgeted gently with a lock of her hair. Usually his constant fidgeting irritated her, but now she could sense the affection inherent in the touch. He always touched things, but she could surely get used to him touching her. Right about now, in fact. His thick fingers were surprisingly delicate, and their movements assured and expert.

She reached out through her skin, and only an instant later realised how odd that sounded. He was warm, which was nice. She'd been cool – cold – for so long, she'd forgotten how warm felt against her.

"Will I get cold too?" Castle asked.

"I don't know. I hope not. You're cosy." She nestled into his side more firmly, and turned to kiss his jaw, now slightly stubbled. "And a little rough."

"I can play rough if you like," Castle said lazily, "but not right now. Now, I wanna cuddle you. Cuddling is good. It makes you happy, and your mind quietens right down. All I can feel is this wash of warmth."

"I think that's you. I can feel it too and it doesn't feel like me."

"It feels good, though? Doesn't it?"

"Yeah. This is all just weird, though. Really, really weird."

"Isn't that my line?"

"Have you got a better description?"

"No," Castle admitted. "But it doesn't matter, does it? We're here now, and there's nothing we can do to change it, so... better get used to it." He grinned evilly. "But the sex was spectacular."

"Mmmmm."

"C'mere," he purred. "Let's see if it's just as good the second time around." Her instant arousal flashed through his desire.

It was just as good the second time around. And the third, in the shower.

* * *

The following day, Beckett reached the bullpen with her ghosts around her as usual. Unlike usual, they were full of suppressed excitement: swooshing and swirling around her as if they'd been injected with ectoplasmic amphetamines. They were marginally more solid, to her eyes, and rather more informative: almost garrulous.

Very like Castle, in fact. Oh God. Multiple Castles? She was doomed to insanity. "Calm down," she hissed at them. They did. She made her coffee, and settled down to work. Information was soon splattered all over the latest murder board.

She knew Castle was on his way some time before he arrived, and was sure he had known that she was in the bullpen from the moment he woke. The dead enlivened again as he came in, and when she looked he was trailed by a pale mist. It hadn't stopped him bringing her coffee, fortunately.

"I've got company," he whispered nervously to her.

"So I see."

"What do I do with them?"

"Listen to them." Suddenly she smiled evilly. "And let them help you in the next poker game."

"Cheat? I would _never_."

"Gotcha."

"You're much cheerier today."

"Hallowe'en's over for another year." Castle's question was scrawled all over his face. "I don't... well, it's difficult. You saw."

"Yeah. Um... will I have to do that too?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Oh."

"It's scary, the first time. It gets easier." She smiled. "And you'll be with me."

"You had to do it alone."

"Yeah. Except for them. I'd had them for months by then. But I was still terrified. I thought..."

"That you'd join them."

"Yes."

"So did I. I've never been so scared in all my life."

 _It's one night._

 _We are nervous too._

 _What if it goes wrong and we're left with nothing?_

 _No-one._

 _We were glad when you came._

 _And when you joined her._

 _We will have justice now._

Beckett coughed.

 _More justice._

 _And you have each other._

"We do," they said together, and smiled.

* * *

 _ **A year later, or so...**_

"Won't they notice we're missing?"

"No. They'll just think that we've sneaked off somewhere."

"That's not an improvement, Castle."

"Let's get going." He shivered.

"This time, you know what's going to happen."

"Yeah. That really doesn't help right now."

 _One night._

 _One payment from each of you._

 _Tonight, you give back._

They parked up beside the cemetery's iron gates.

"Why here?"

 _Age_ , a dry, withered voice whispered, as they walked through the closed gate. _We are old._ It wasn't a shade that Castle had seen before. It carried the weight of ages with it. _Year by year, we age, and do not die._

"We are here to make payment," Beckett said, in formal, clipped tones. "Bone and blood and iron, as is necessary."

 _Two of you_.

"Two of us."

"Two of us," echoed Castle.

He held tightly to Beckett's chilly hand as they passed through the graves, the dead leaves crunching and the dead surrounding them. At the same point as last year, she stopped, slipped off her coat, and set the same small bone bowl on the grass. Castle followed, silently: removed his watch when she did. When the sharp steel blade glinted, he shivered, but knelt opposite her. This was her show, and he had to follow where she led.

The edge flashed, and her wrist opened, the blood already dripping slow and sluggish. Another swift flash: no time to flinch, and his joined it: pressed together so that the dark stains mingled.

The dead fed, and came alive once more.

 _You are ours._

"Yes. But you are also ours. Remember it. You need us."

 _You belong._

 _You belong to us, and we to you._

 _And you to each other._

It was the same withered, aged whisper.

"We are each other's."

In the pale moonlight, Castle came to one knee, and extended his right hand. Between his fingers, there was a sparkle.

"You're mine, and I'm yours," he said solemnly, quietly. "Katherine Houghton Beckett, will you marry me?"

"Yes."

 _ **Fin.**_

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Happy Hallowe'en._


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